MSuperlooper - Now I'm serious

[mccy]

MSooperlooper was a dream when I said Vojtech he would be the only person who would be able to build a Looper beast, that could come close to Mobius.
Now I followed the first developements, I was excited and I wanted more, more more... and struggled to get it really to do what I wanted. After a break I am back and finding some new settings, new possibilities & I have to say: We are almost there

I managed (easily) to synchronize two MSuperloopers with letting them "follow host playback" and using the same recording in the first Track!!! That is so simple, but opens up a new world of endless tracks...

edit: and yes, I set the tempo with the first loop in the first looper. No Metronome, no predefined Tempo.

1. Please, just add the possibility to copy with one click the first track of another MSuperLooper in the same arrangement! Then we would have unlimited synced tracks (in a way)!!! This is THE possibility of syncing multiple MSuperLoopers!

Now i am building and building and find that the ...

2. Midi Note settings are just too few... PLEASE MAKE a lot more slots for Midi Notes controlling MSuperlooper... With a cheap Midi Keyboard you can control sooo many functions. If you control some single Track functions I need more Note controllers or is there a trick for that? Yes I can combine some with Multiparameters, so one Note fires up lots of functions at ones, but there are so many useful single functions, it would be great to have more Notes being able to control these things!

MSuperlooper rules, I hope to go out in the park this summer with it. No more ableton (which is great, but it feels so good with a custom solution).

This things is so fantastic! MIDI timing is so damn precise! Best in class!!!!

[CableChannel]

Super Looper beats are gonna woo me la la la la laaaa

[Dirk Diggler]

Agreed I had taken time off, did an update and lots of surprises for sure.

By the way have you checked out the spiffy replace?
That's working well too, especially with momentary.

I agree the midi implementation needs more targets, more screens perhaps?

[mccy]

edit: Yes, replace is very cool!

But: Oh, no... I now found some strange things in MSuperLooper but its really these last few bits which would make it really shine:

1. Why shouldn't I record a second loop on Tracks where I did not record the first one or a third on tracks where I did not record the second one... I want to use it like scenes in Ableton, that's what really makes sense here, but You won't necessarily have a second loop on Track X with settings for lets say Bass with an octaver in the effects when the bass is not present in your second song-part. , but maybe the bass has to be back in the 3rd or 4th part...

2. I made a Multiparameter for selecting the loops all together for all tracks so i can switch from loop1 to loop2 to loop 3 to loop 4 on all tracks simultaniously for switching songparts. Now when I use that Multiparameter the track selection always jumps to the last track. That's very irritating.

Even when I make Triggers with multiparameters for switching Loops on several tracks at once this happens. O.K. there is a workaround, I can make a select Track 1 (or whatever track) in the end of the Multiparameter so it does not jump to the end of the long list but I simply want the Track selection to stay where it was befor switching the Loops 1-4.

The strangest thing is, that I can actually record the 2nd, 3rd or fourth loop while its not visible (even if I did not record anything before on that track) and even play it back... So that makes completely no sense. They sould be all visible all the time or at least become visible after being recorded!

It's funny, you can even record a 5th Track if you only show 4 .

The list with 16 tracks is very long anyway. I'd like to have a more compact view for the 16 Tracks & yes I promis I won't beg for more any more . Now that I can synchronize several loopers everything is fine, at least if there were a button to load a dummy tempo file in the other loopers in the project.

B.t.w. I remembered someone asking for unsynchronized looplengths... That seems to be very easy: Just avoid recording the first Track which gives the synchronisation.

[mccy]

And B.t.w. I just figured out, that with Multiparameters you can even realize someting like a Launchpad Matrix, because we have 16 x 4 Loops that's 8x8 loops. If we could use them all visible and easily selectable that would be an 8x8 matrix ... so in 6 Months I will ask for MIDI feedback for the flashing lights on a Launchpad again (someone had that Idea and now i realize that this would be so awesome!!!). Yes, it's too much for now, but that would kick a**. Playtime in Reaper did realize this and it's so much fun to use that visual feedback Matrix, but actually Superlooper is much more precise in timing and more reliable for me and in some points just on the point where Playtime missed it (can't explain that, I tried to get some basic functions for months there...), so that would be the way to go.

[ericzang]

I also agree that sending some kind of midi messaging which reflect the status of the various states of MSuperlooper would be very useful for advanced usage. In context of triggering lights on a controller, I recall Vojtech commenting that it wouldn't work out universally because every controller requires different midi commands.

One idea is that MSL would just send a fixed set of CCs (perhaps based on Launchpad for example). Then it would be up to the user to use a method to convert those CCs to the needed ones (could use Bome, Lemur, midi fx utility plugins, Max, etc). Though this is relatively advanced, I would guess anyone who wants to delve in this far would not be deterred to do that. Another idea, though I don't know if this fits within the Melda framework, is to have an external user editable text file that MSL uses to configure what messages it sends out.

I would also use this capability to inform a scripting program, such as lemur or Max, which could then allow for very customized functions. Probably a fair amount of integration with something like lemur could presently be had as long as every midi controller command destined for MSL instead goes to lemur first and is then passed to MSL, so that lemur is then "aware" of all the commands and probably in most cases this would reflect the state of MSL. Likely there could be some exceptions, so midi CC (or whatever, even sysex) status messages coming out of MSL would complete the scenario, as well as provide a more time accurate track state representation in the quantized mode (for example you press "stop", but you appropriately don't see your Stop color on the controller until the end of the measure when the track actually "stops".)

For example, just some obvious parameters off the top of my head that would send out midi:
Track State: Recording, Playing, or "Stopped" (actually mute because of the way the MSL "play" button functions), Overdubbing, Cleared.
Which track selected and which subloop selected.

Anyhow, yeah great to have MSL come this far, thanks so much Vojtech!

[mccy]

I also agree that sending some kind of midi messaging which reflect the status of the various states of MSuperlooper would be very useful for advanced usage. In context of triggering lights on a controller, I recall Vojtech commenting that it wouldn't work out universally because every controller requires different midi commands.

But he wouldn't be vojtech, if it wouldn't be an 'open concept' anyway. With Playtime inside reaper the programmer gave a littel script file possibility to you where you could name the Midi controllers controlling what inside playtime and where you can set where the midi feedback should go. Just as easy as that:

1) Midicontroller/note x controls parameter y
2) status of parameter y sends midi via controller/note z to device a

That is kind of the Multiparameters + the ability to set where feedback for Loop status goes. OMG, controlling MSL via Launchpad Mini would be soooooooooooo awesome cute & handy.

i made a script for some controllers I have. It was easy with the small textfile with comments, but you could do that also with a page where you have an overview of the functions (and its mainly only playing/recording/loaded (=different colours) status on/off from Loops 1-64, that's it where we need midi feedback). Of course the scripts or settings for different controllers would be community work.

So in the end it's really about just having a status information for the 64 LOOPS:

1) Loop is empty (no feedback)
2) loop is recording (red light = send information on controller xy)
3) Loop is loaded/recorded (e.g. yellow light = send information to controller xy)
4) Loop is playing (green light = send send information to controller xy)
...
5) I forgot, there could be colours for "almost recording" and "almost playing" too...

For different controllers lights feedback we could find the necessary information for devices we don't own in the playtime script files.

Come on, make it perfect! It is so close!

[ericzang]

What do you use to make/run your scripts?

1) Loop is empty (no feedback)

but is still important for a midi notification to be associated with the empty state. Ableton's looper doesn't do this and it has been very inconvenient making workarounds for that.

[mccy]

The scripts are part of "Playtime". That is a Reaper-only-plugin which emulates Abletons clips and scenes for Reaper DAW. It has a scripting tool to adapt midi controllers to use its functionality - of course only working for Reaper with playtime, but a good example how it can be done. It started with one or two controllers compatible, but now there are many...

Why do we need midi feedback for an empty loop/clip? The leds are off in my controllers, when there is no loop/clip on that pad...

Ah, does that make sense with lemur? I once built a huge surrounding for playtime in lemur... but I got stuck with playtime as it was not as reliable as I hoped it to be and then had to fight against cancer... now I'm slowly getting back into that livelooping energy and I hope Superlooper will develope further, it is the perfect candidate, as playtime was... I bet at some point they will both work flawlessly and I can't decide which one to use

[ericzang]

Ah ok thanks. I also use Reaper for primary daw duties, though for live usage Bitwig looks promising. Knowing the state of the looper, including whether it is empty, helps in the context of creating conditional functions/scripts that need to know the state. Currently I've developed a system for another person who is based in Ableton, using lemur to greatly expand on its usefulness incorporating many conditional behaviors. Had I known better at the time I may have used standalone max and/or Ableton's python scripting instead of lemur (apparently is abandonware now). For my own use I think I would prefer MSL and Bitwig (which uses Javascript), and perhaps Open Sound Control as the touch screen controller or maybe Max with Miraweb. Good to know you've made it through your fight!

[TVbene]

... so in 6 Months I will ask for MIDI feedback for the flashing lights on a Launchpad again (someone had that Idea and now i realize that this would be so awesome!!!). Yes, it's too much for now, but that would kick a**. Playtime in Reaper did realize this and it's so much fun to use that visual feedback Matrix, but actually Superlooper is much more precise in timing and more reliable for me and in some points just on the point where Playtime missed it (can't explain that, I tried to get some basic functions for months there...), so that would be the way to go.

That was probably me talking about MIDI feedback, still think that would be a huge improvement to the workflow. But of course this is a lot of work.

One alternative could be for Melda to expose all the necessary information to the DAW as plugin parameters and then someone could write a controller script for the DAW. I used that concept with Playtime which exposes a lot of parameters. There is a project for reaper (CSI) that helps with making your own reaper controller script and this way I could select and delete all clips in Playtime with the 8x8 matrix of my Launchpad. I just had to manipulate the values of different plugin parameters.

Unfortunately I could not use CSI for complex MIDI feedback back then. But for example if someone knows how to write a script for reaper (or bitwig etc.) that looks into the parameters of MSL and makes the buttons of a few standard 8x8 controllers light up accordingly we'd have a solution for a specific DAW. And Melda would not need to implement scripting inside MSL.

[TVbene]

BTW I really exhausted my scripting abilities with my first script for Bitwig which imitates Playtime's ability to play multiple clips per track and the record/stop/relaunch mode. I think this example shows how a controller with LEDs can support the creative process of live looping... so I'll just go and post a video of it (Bitwig part starts after a minute):

[mccy]

Great video! Great work!
I'm hoping for Bitwig to implement the first-clip-tempodetection for so long.
I just can't work with that preselected looplengths and predefined tempo.

That's the main reason why MSL is superior for me so far. I don't like using that extra looper plugin in Ableton, although that is the most complete solution so far.

What would it make so difficult to implement a window in Midi settings of MSL with midi-feedback-settings for the status of the loops in MSL? These would be 64 pads with each 3 to 5 or 6 controller numbers for the states which would be identical for all anyway) You could just select the loop and select midi out commands for its status (at least: (off,) loaded, playing, recording)?
The idea with the script in Reaper is great, but MSLs parameters for the loops would not be accessible I think.

Now we are at least 3 guys who would analyze what Launchpad (to have a start) Mini needs... I bet you allready know it .
So when I think of how little time vojtech needs to implement muc more complex features into his plugins, this would be peanuts.

Nice to get in touch here! Thank you

Martin

[mccy]

Ah, stupid me, Launchpad simply takes notes from 0-127 in blocks of 8 then plus one scene button with different velocities for colour. The extra buttons seem to be controllers, I think they don't need a feedback anyway...

So 0-9; 16-24 ...

So it would not make sense to send a message for "not recorded", because as soon as you send a note, no matter which velocity) the led will light up!

[mccy]

This shows that Vojtech allready has all the complicated parts at hand. Make a basic setting for the loops what they output and then add the possibility to use these MIDI output filters. Or are they very CPU hungry? 64 of these filters wouldn't be so great, maybe... Anyway, Melda knows how to do MIDI.

https://www.meldaproduction.com/tutoria ... idi-filter